At the Arceau stadium in Angers, a football club breaks down barriers by offering inclusive multi-sport sessions. Béchir and Mohammad, two young visually impaired football enthusiasts, find a group, friends and an opportunity thanks to this bold initiative.
Every Wednesday from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m., at the Arceau stadium in Angers, the Croix-Blanche football club offers inclusive multi-sport sessions. The young footballers, aged 8 to 17, volunteer to allow Bashir and Mohammad to practice a sporting activity.
Béchir, a 16-year-old young man from Angevin from Libya, and Mohammad, 19, living in Le Mans from Syria, are interns during the week at the Montclair Institute, a medico-social establishment which welcomes visually impaired, blind or visually impaired children . They are also both licensed to the White Cross club. ” Béchir loves playing football, it’s his passion, you should know that Béchir was clairvoyant before. He wants to keep playing football.”
For Ludovic Da Cunha, the sports educator with a diploma in staps, the awareness was made during the Covid-19 crisis, he passed a skill module on disability.
” We inquired about everything related to disabled sports and blindness, there is nothing in the department, there is not a single field, no outdoor activities.”
On Wednesday, for all the children it’s blind football! • © MStream
Thanks to the motivation of the educators of the Angevin club, the problem is solved.
In less than 6 months we managed to have a temporary blind football pitch. So yes, it’s not much, it’s a closed tennis court with two goals, but it’s already huge.
Ludovic Da Cunha
sports trainer
The club now has a multi-sports section for the visually impaired affiliated with the French Handisport Federation and also offers other activities such as athletics and muscle building.
Ludovic Da Cunha, sports educator at the White Cross club in Angers • © MStream
A new ground which also benefits the young players of the club: “ We invite them to come to the sessions to discover all about sensitivity. It also helps to raise awareness of tolerance, to understand the other, that it is always possible to do things even if there are obstacles in life..”
During training, young people put themselves in the shoes of a visually impaired person • © MStream
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